Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

McConnell, Trump Bicker Over Who’s To Blame For Health Care Failure

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says President Donald Trump's "early timelines" and "excessive expectations" are hindering Congress' ability to get anything done, while the president fired back that lawmakers have had seven years to work on it.

The Associated Press:
Trump Hits McConnell For Senate Crash Of Obama Health Repeal
President Donald Trump scolded his own party's Senate leader on Wednesday for the crash of the Republican drive to repeal and rewrite the Obama health care law, using Twitter to demand of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, "Why not done?" Trump fired back at the Kentucky Republican for telling a home-state audience this week that the president had "not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." (8/9)

USA Today:
Donald Trump Responds To McConnell: I Don't Have Excessive Expectations
In an interview this week, McConnell had blamed Trump for setting "early timelines" and "excessive expectations" as one of the reasons that people believe Congress is getting nothing done. But Trump said he didn't think he had "excessive expectations." "After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?" he said on Twitter. (Collins, 8/9)

WBUR:
Trump, McConnell Point Fingers Over Health Care Failure
"Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before. And I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process," the Senate majority leader continued. "So part of the reason I think people feel we're underperforming is because too many artificial deadlines — unrelated to the reality of the complexity of legislating — may not have been fully understood." (Taylor, 8/9)

Politico:
Trump Vs. McConnell
The tit-for-tat between Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the chamber's failure to repeal Obamacare opens a politically perilous schism within a party already riven by tensions over its lack of accomplishments this year. (McCaskill and Schor, 8/9)